The interface Exporter is a
high-level API for both exporting a single remote object so
that it can receive remote method invocations, and unexporting
that same remote object. Applications can use a Configuration provider together with
the Exporter interface to export remote objects in a way
that can be configured and deployed at run-time to use specific
implementations of the Exporter interface. See the net.jini.config
package documentation for examples on configurable exporting.

Exports an object using the Java(TM) Remote Method Invocation
(Java RMI) implementation in Java 2, SDK, Standard Edition
(J2SE(TM)). The behavior of remote objects exported via a
JrmpExporter are the same as the behavior of objects
exported via equivalent exportObject methods of the
java.rmi.server.UnicastRemoteObject and
java.rmi.activation.Activatable classes.

Exports an object using the Java Remote Method Invocation over
Internet-ORB Protocol technology (RMI-IIOP) in J2SE. The behavior of
remote objects exported via an IiopExporter are the same
as the behavior of objects exported via the exportObject
method of the class javax.rmi.PortableRemoteObject and
(where appropriate) connected to an ORB via the
connect method of javax.rmi.CORBA.Stub.

Exports an object to use Jini extensible remote invocation
(Jini ERI). A remote object exported with
BasicJeriExporter can have associated custom remote
invocation and dispatch behavior, as well as a customized
communication protocol.

The details of export and unexport behavior, including
communication protocols used for remote invocation and additional
invocation semantics, are defined by the particular implementation of
the Exporter interface.

To export a remote object, an application needs to either construct
a new instance of an Exporter implementation explicitly
or use the Configuration.getEntry method to obtain a new
instance of an Exporter implementation. It is preferable
to obtain exporters via the Configuration provider
because doing so eliminates application code dependency on specific
Exporter implementations. Only a single object can be
exported per Exporter instance. Since an exporter hides
all the details of export behavior (for example, an object or
activation identifier) and such information in many cases is only
applicable to a single object, it simplifies the abstraction and the
programming model to require a new exporter per export.

The export method exports a remote object and returns
a proxy that implements all the remote interfaces of the remote object
and that can be used to invoke remote methods on that exported remote
object. The caller should not make any assumptions about the behavior
of the Exporter implementation to which the object was
exported, the implementation of the returned proxy (for example, it
need not be a "stub" class as defined in the Java RMI specification), or
the communication protocols used by the returned proxy to invoke
remote methods.

A remote object exported via a given Exporter instance
can later be unexported by invoking the unexport method
of that Exporter instance.

The interface ProxyAccessor provides a
means to obtain a proxy for an exported remote object and is typically
used in conjunction with activatable remote objects. An activatable
remote object should implement this interface so that the activation
group can obtain the remote object's proxy once the remote object is
created (activated) and exported. If an activatable remote object
does not implement this interface, it must define a constructor that
takes as arguments an ActivationID and a
MarshalledObject, and it must be serializable and
marshalling the object produces a suitable proxy for the remote
object.

The class ServerContext
provides a generic API for associating and obtaining server context
information for a remote call executing in the current thread.
The class contains static methods for obtaining the server context for
the current thread (ServerContext.getServerContext) and
for executing some action within a given server context
(ServerContext.doWithServerContext). In addition, the
ServerContext class provides the interface ServerContext.Spi for server context
providers that are consulted to obtain a server context if one is not
already associated with the current thread via the
ServerContext.doWithServerContext method.

The context information available from a given element of the
collection is determined by that element's type. Examples of types
that a given element might implement include:

A remote object does not itself set up a ServerContext,
rather the Exporter implementation that
dispatches incoming calls to its exported remote objects may establish
one for each call that it services.

For supplying context information for remote method execution, the
BasicJeriExporter implementation uses the method
doWithServerContext and the JrmpExporter
implementation uses the provider interface
ServerContext.Spi. The IiopExporter
implementation does not support the ServerContext API in
supplying context information for incoming calls dispatched to its
exported objects.